Yesterday, The Walt Disney Co. unveiled plans to make a number of spin-off movies set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — in addition to the post-Return of the Jedi trilogy that had already been announced.

Entertainment Weekly has learned details on two of the spin-off projects: A young Han Solo saga, focusing on the wisecracking smuggler’s origin story, and a bounty hunter adventure with Boba Fett at the center of a rogue’s gallery of galactic scum.

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The Han Solo story would take place in the time period between Revenge of the Sith and the first Star Wars (now known as A New Hope), so although it’s possible Harrison Ford could appear as a framing device, the movie would require a new actor for the lead — one presumably much younger than even the 35-year-old Ford when he appeared in the 1977 original.

The Boba Fett film would take place either between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, or between Empire and Jedi, where the bounty hunter was last seen plunging unceremoniously into a sarlacc pit. Exactly who would play him isn’t much of a complication – in the original trilogy, he never took off his helmet. And in the prequels, we learned he was the son of the original stormtrooper clone, played by Temuera Morrison, who’s still the right age for the part if his services were required.

On the plus side, Han Solo and Boba Fett are two of the most interesting characters in the SW universe. Movies featuring their backstories have massive potential. On the double-plus side, George Lucas won’t be directing, so the actors may come off as living, breathing human beings. That’s something we haven’t seen in a Star Wars film in a long, long time.

The Star Wars empire is running on fumes. If Disney doesn’t get this right, the galaxy far, far away could collapse.

Disney could do this right, or they could Disney-fy it. Will we get the gritty Republic Commando treatment that both of these characters deserve, or will we get a more candy-coated take aimed at reviving the Star Wars video game and toy empire? A gritty treatment, especially of Boba Fett, could be amazing. I hope for that but dread and fear the Disneyification of the whole thing. Another way they could screw this up, in typical Star Wars fashion, would be to have some extremely unlikely connection between the two characters revealed in the movies. There’s no need for that. Darth Vader didn’t need to build C-3PO for the Star Wars saga to work. Han and Boba Fett don’t need to be schoolyard buddies or enemies, or fellow recruits at the imperial academy.

I’m trying not to write that I have a bad feeling about this, but honestly, I do.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

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48 Comments, 13 Threads

1.
Pater Coop

Personally, I would not like to see a movie centered around Boba Fett. Boba Fett is a villain. It sends a bad message to impressionable minds when you make a bad man who does bad things the protagonist. At best, you get an anti-hero–and how many more movies of that ilk do we need?–and at worst you get the outright glorification of evil. Furthermore, be careful of what you wish. Sometimes two-dimensional characters are intriguing for the very reason that we are only allowed to speculate on their back story.

Yeah, I’m not sure how Fett ended up being “one of the most interesting characters.” He has a cool spaceship, he strikes a few cool poses, he says a couple of Lucas-style throwaway lines, then he gets eaten by a monster. So what?

Boba Fett was so popular that they had him escape from the Sarlac. I’m not sure if there are any novels specifically about him but there are a number of comicbooks telling his story. Perhaps some of them could be made into movies.

As Pater Coop points out, Fett has no redeeming qualities. He is at best totally amoral if not outright evil. We don’t see much about him in the movies other than that he does what it takes to collect on a bounty and that he has no problem working for the Empire or crime lords.

I remember way back before his first appearance, I used to read magazines like “Starlog.” There was a pre-production still with him in it, and the readers went nuts! “Ooooo! Could he be Luke’s father?” It was absurd. Just because he was in one picture they went into speculation overdrive. And did he even have a line in his first flick, or did he just stand there with his dumb helmet? I dunno.

I think this is a disease with Star Wars fans: they imagine backstory to EVERYTHING. They fill it out in their heads and after a while they start to believe their own BS. (I think some of them might even believe they’ve already seen a Boba Fett movie!)

A villain, only in the context of these movies. And even then, only in the most shallow casting as such. He was a private cop.. a Bounty Hunter. That is not a villain.. though many times cast as such. Consider Clint Eastwood in “A Few Dollars More” as Protagonist bounty hunter.

The idea of a Bounty Hunter as villain is leftist claptrap.

And, in context of the movies, the Jedi thought well enough of Boba Fett to use him as the basis of cloning an entire army from.

Ohmigosh! I remember the Han Solo trilogy! They were really the only Star Wars novels I read and they were among the first (I’m still trying to forget Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye). They were damn good–and, yes, they all featured strong female supporting characters.

Han Solo At Star’s End was especially good, we really get into his head although his origins are still kept closely guarded (in Han Solo and the Lost Legacy we are given a cryptic inference that he was a cashiered Imperial cadet or some such that left him cynical and embittered). The villain of all three pieces is the Corporate Sector Authority, some kind of Imperially-chartered monopoly that administers and ruthlessly exploits much of known space on behalf of the Empire.

As I understand it, Daley based the Corporate Sector Authority on the British and Dutch East India Companies. That is, private concerns chartered by their national governments, that were a de facto government in their respective areas, complete to armed forces. Among other things, such arrangements allowed the governments in question to exploit an area’s resources, and have it policed, without actually having to foot the bill for either one.

The Empire probably chartered the CSA for much the same reason, if indeed the existence of the Authority didn’t predate the Empire, going back to the days of the Republic. (The British East India Company was chartered on 31 December 1600, and was finally disestablished in 1874, having survived everything from Cromwell to the Napoleonic Wars.)

Oh, by the way, according to Star’s End, Solo wasn’t an Imperial officer. He was a captain in the Corellian armed forces, who was brave (or crazy) enough in combat, under fire, to earn the Corellian Bloodstripe, which apparently was the equivalent of the Medal of Valor. Hence the dark red stripe down the legs of his (ex-issue) black trousers. As one character in the book put it, very few Corellian officers ever earned a Bloodstripe, and most of those who did wore it posthumously. On the uniforms they were buried in.

My guess is that whatever he did to earn it would probably make a good movie all by itself.

Part of what made the original trilogy so special was how approachable it was. A classic tale of good and evil, anybody could watch it and walk away having understood it. In a time of 70s malaise, the simple story of a virtuous hero resonated with this ever increasingly cynical society – and it continues to do so.

The prequels revealed that George Lucas never understood that, and furthermore that the credit was by no means his to take. A happy accident of film masterpiece, it should have been left alone. It used to be cool to be a Star Wars fan, now with those damned prequels, it’s a joke.

I have a copy of Star Wars Revisited and, for my family, that’s the only one we care to watch. Lucas’s prequels were bad enough, Disney is worse. The mythical arc is over so they’re going to do a backstory to a supporting character and a series dedicated to a character who originally had a whopping 5 lines. While that is pretty boneheaded, Disney is after all, the company for pointless sequels. Walt Disney has rolled over in grave so much that I think his tomb powers Southern Florida.

Creativity in Hollywood is dead, and has been for over a decade. Why not sequels and prequels to Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, and The Searchers? Hollywood has no shame and will rape nostalgia as long as it can guarantee a profit. (And they’ll do it in 3D to ensure they’ll get that profit.)

Movies like Push and Jumper could not have been made in what you seem to think of as the good old days (technical abilities), and these explore ‘what if’ re next steps in human evolution. It’s interesting subject matter, much more interesting than e.g. cowboy movies of any stripe.

On the surface the matrix movie was silly (human batteries? please) but underneath was questions regarding the nature of reality itself, prompting questions of whether the severely impaired could live digitally. This same ground was somewhat covered in the original two part intro to star trek tv show and the matrix carried this into virtual reality, an interesting twist that offers up other ramifications to consider. Yes this is old fodder for sci-fi oldsters but the matrix presented things in a popcorn chewing manner that kept butts in the seats. That’s creative all by itself.

Claiming that hollywood is noncreative due to a predominance of dreck isn’t useful. Sturgeon’s law says “ninety percent of everything is crap.” Tue enough, much of 70′s music was forgettable dreck with a few shining gems and older fans recall that era rather fondly and think of it as creative.

Are you sure you’re simply not just missing the 10% of the recent era?

What I was mainly referring to is the overabundance of remakes and sequels, being produced at a rate no previous decade has ever matched. Yes, I realize that, like music, you get more dreck than good, but I’m sure most would agree that this remake/sequel/reboot shtick is getting old. Do you realize that every single film of the top 10 highest grossing films of the past decade have been sequels?

Now, I appreciate that you are a Sci-Fi fan. That’s great. For me, I love historical pieces – as an historian, I enjoy nitpicking period films, even if the movies aren’t that bad. Opinions are like buttholes: everybody has one. However, the truth is that film profit – just like in music – has seen a steady loss of revenue and are in panic mode. As I mentioned before, the response to this has been remake/reboots/sequels to attract viewers on the basis of preexisting connections. Many of these films are cheaply made (like the Twilight films) but are released in 3D, making a large profit with little effort. It’s kibble for the masses.

Sci-Fi movies and period films like the two of us enjoy can be exceptions to that rule, but the truth is that deeply introspective films do not make money. I don’t mind a little mindless entertainment, but I do ask that it be original (and not liberal-message heavy).

On a side note, I may not be old enough to remember the era of Westerns, but – what’s wrong with a good western?

What I was mainly referring to is the overabundance of remakes and sequels, being produced at a rate no previous decade has ever matched.

Movies are also a business. If the character is such that audiences want more (e.g. the Taken movie with Liam Neeson produced a recent sequel) then as long as the sequel stands on its own and there’s an audience willing to spend money to see it, then sure. I don’t equate sequels with a creative lull so much as evidence that studios — despite the standard trope here that hollywood is all about marxism — are capitalist enough to give audiences what they want.

Some here will also point to movies that replaced e.g. muslim bad guys with white neo-nazis as evidence that hollywood is marxist, scared, etc but I see this as yet more evidence of the capitalist nature of studios… after all today’s movies are seen worldwide and made for an international audience. Look at the web sites that track the money made and something gets say $100M here and is in widespread global release will see $300M come in from elsewhere. Clearly the studios are catering to the global market, so if the chinese want to see a film that’s a remake of one they didn’t see in the original format, and it picks up business in the US as well, then — why not do that film?

What if the music industry operated in the same manner? Some years back, everyone went nuts over a remix of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation;” while it was a hit, the practice of remixing old standards has (thankfully) not caught on. We do not have a market where 90% of today’s music is covers or remixes of older hits.

As I stated before, the growing dependence on remakes/sequels/reboots is a result of lessening theater attendance; the growing trend of 3D movies, while unpopular, is no more than a way to get profits from small attendance numbers. While Hollywood is indeed a business, it is a business that usually avoids taking risks – the dependence on the aforementioned formula is proof of this. I previously referred to it as ‘kibble for the masses’ and I think that stands true.

I must say, however, that we are in disagreement over the nature of Hollywood itself. If Hollywood truly made products to suit public tastes then, for example, they would not have worked so hard to shut down the sale of DVDs edited for language and sexual content. There is certainly a political bias there that would be foolish to ignore. The fact that Hollywood feels threatened by Netflix, combined with the ever increasing number of families removing their television hookups, it cannot be denied that Hollywood is largely out of touch with the American public. Its continued survival has increasingly come from catering to niche markets – doing so may keep your business alive, but it won’t thrive unless it has mass appeal. Perhaps you are right in that regard, i.e., the target audience is no longer the American viewer, but the global viewer.

This is a trend that first began with the introduction of the VCR, at a point in American history where Hollywood was wildly out of touch with the American public. Summer blockbusters like Star Wars (you know, the concept that film profits come from merchandising rather than ticket sales) slowed the inevitable, but I still believe that Hollywood has been slowly losing its grip on America’s pulse for a long time.

The fact that Hollywood feels threatened by Netflix, combined with the ever increasing number of families removing their television hookups, it cannot be denied that Hollywood is largely out of touch with the American public.

This is basic right wing ideological belief #23. You are not the first here to espouse such a belief. Doubtful you will be the last. The problem is with this belief is that it is just that, belief, with no backing data.

First, in regard to Netflix being “the best friend of the studios,” Hollywood has largely treated Netflix as a threat. Yes, it brings in a profit, but it is a substantially lower one than those achieved by in the traditional market. DVD sales have plummeted, and the cost of online movie streaming has yet to make up for those lost figures – and are not likely to do so. A random article that discusses this conflict is here:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162054151330.htm#p2

Lastly, in regard to your figures, they are nice but miss some important facts. Firstly, taking into consideration inflation, 2002 was the high year, and while the numbers have fluctuated somewhat, inflation alters your figures to an average gross of 10.8 billion – meaning 2012’s numbers were quite typical.

Secondly, gross is not nearly as important as admissions – remember, that is the subject of our discussion: whether or not the American public is losing interest. The Motion Picture Association of America’s Theatrical Market Statistics Report shows a steady drop in theatrical attendance since 2002.

I apologize if “basic right wing ideological belief #23″ upsets you, but it is a belief with a solid foundation. Besides, aren’t you in the wrong place if “right-wing” beliefs upset you?

Not everything is “get off my lawn.” That is an easy and false comparison that suggests nothing ever changes, and golden ages of art are an illusion.

From 1910 to 1920, SF and fantasy literature saw an incredibly influential body of work produced in the Munsey magazines, some of which is read to this day.

That work was re-printed throughout the ’40s in Famous Fantastic Mysteries and it SOLD. When has that happened in the last 40 years?

From roughly 1955 to 1970, there was a similar resurgence, this time combining the Munsey content with golden age SF from 1940 to 1950. It not only sold in huge numbers, it kicked off a new age of SF literature, TV and film that continues to this day.

When has SF literature published in the last 40 years been celebrated in such a fashion? It has not.

SF film has always been a weak sister to literature, and there has never been a golden age of SF film per se. Having said that, name even one SF film in the last 10 years that rises to the level of Blade Runner, Close Encounters, Gattaca or even Alien. And those don’t rise to the level of the best of SF literature like The Demolished Man, Infinity Beach, The Weapon Shops, To Live Forever, or Fallen Dragon.

Avatar – a possible exception. There’s some very good stuff in there. The problem is that one can argue it’s been heavily based on the writings of Christopher Rowley, (The Black Ship) Poul Anderson (Call Me Joe) and Clifford D. Simak (Desertion).

Wall-E – I could stand corrected there. Wall-E is a great work of art.

The Man From Earth – didn’t see it.

V For Vendetta – a film I liked very much. Don’t think it quite gets there as good SF.

Serenity – I love that movie. A great SF sidestep on the genre. But it is neither ambitious or nuanced as is really good SF.

Eternal Sunshine – stinko

X2 – average but a lot of fun. Children of Dune definitely deserves this spot. That’s a great film.

28 Days Later – stinko zombie crap

Donnie Darko – didn’t see it.

X-Men – see above.

The Matrix – a lot of fun but its antecedents have more to do with Japanese anime and comics. Very good though.

Dark City – a very nice film that, like Serenity, sidesteps genre tropes nicely. Not a great film.

The Fifth Element – to me, one of the all-time great SF films.

Independence Day – stinko

12 Monkeys – the rare SF film that shows the nuance and unusual combinations SF can throw at you. Close to being one of the greats.

Body Snatchers – stinko

Jurassic Park – more like a great roller coaster ride than film. I’m not a fan of car-tree stunts. Spielberg caricatures himself here. I was hoping for something more like The Land That Time Forgot. Have at ‘em why don’t ‘cha?

Universal Soldier – stinko

Terminator 2 – one of the best SF films.

Total Recall – considering it’s film, not bad. Better than the remake. Innovative for its day.

The Abyss – a very good film.

Akira – a ground-breaking film.

Robocop – ground-breaking at the time. The first time we ever see special effects that allow SF film to let down its hair, as in The Thing-Hulk-type fight scences. Not much compared to literature however.

Aliens – a great film.

Back to the Future – the perfect execution of a very clever screenplay

The Terminator – groundbreaking in its day

Star War III – a great film

Blade Runner – an incredible achievement.

Escape From New York – some good SF combined with blithe stupidity.

I despise Ender’s Game for the undue attention it receives as an all-time great SF novel. It’s not. Not even close. I can name 100 better novels just off the top of my head, including virtually every novel Jack Vance ever wrote. McDevitt, Pohl, Bradbury, Bester, Peter Hamilton – they’ve all done better.

Weber is on the level of average SF for me. Fun enough but it never rises above its own mundane subject matter. I’m not a fan of the British Navy transposed to outer space, crossing the T as orbital mechanics or spiders as aliens for that matter. That’s not nuance, that’s simplistic Capt. Future territory.

I’d sooner see The Mote In God’s Eye made into a film, one of the best SF novels ever written, than Lucifer’s Hammer.

nitpicks: Not sure I can agree re older total recall being better in that it was a bit cheesy… on the other hand quite memorable. So was Running Man for that matter. And stallone’s demolition man had great dialogue.

Hey. I know Jack. Great guy. Keen sense of humour. I usually see him 2-3 times a year. You write scifi. You need to leave a link to your stuff. Hell you’re probably somebody like sm Stirling IRL. You remind me of him sometimes.

S.M. Stirling wrote a novel called “Drakon” I really liked a lot. Kinda like Glover’s film Predator, detective tracks alien, except it’s a very dangerous woman trapped from an alternate future trying to get back; it’s a smart novel.

I think McDevitt’s “Infinity Beach” is one of SF’s all-time great mystery novels; it is genuinely creepy. It’d make a good movie, so would “Drakon.” Just finished “Prefect” by Alistair Reynolds, another detective mystery set in the far future which is very good. I’m reading “Great North Road” by Peter Hamilton and it’s yet another detective mystery set in 2143 – very good so far.

I didn’t think the candidates for best movie never made were particularly interesting as a group. I’d definitely go with “The Demolished Man” and Mote. That poll is UK-weighted; 4 Banks nominations? That’s too many. I’d also go with “Altered Carbon,” “Eon,” “The Stars My Destination,” and especially the Night’s Dawn Trilogy; that’s an incredible accomplishment.

I’ve written 3 1/2 SF novels which are actually one big novel. I’m not a writer so they’re probably on the stinko list. I like them but then I would, wouldn’t I? I’m still revising 3 and the fourth is on hold.

They take place largely in a depraved and faddist city-bordello 350 years in the future. Spies from a geosynchronous habitat create a distraction there to cover up the discovery of an alien artifact on the Moon. Their enemies are intel from 2 empires that have taken over Asia and Africa. The bordello enclave is caught in the middle and two young Paris Hilton-Nancy Drew types who want to be spies are thrown in. It’s an at times vulgar and dystopian black comedy with constantly shifting scenes.

I call it “Britetown Races” and the title has 3 separate meanings, 2 of which are a secret because the novel is designed from the ground up as a perceptual trap, keeping in mind the original critical response to Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” Throw in some references to “Jane Eyre” and “Pride and Prejudice”, which is the novel’s centerpiece, and ya got yer art. It is parked online.

I have a friend who gets his books printed up and rents a table space at sci-fi conventions and has fun doing it. He doesn’t sell a LOT of books but he certainly covers expenses. It’s a way to build a fan base. At some shows he does pretty well.

Con fans tend to be moderate right wingers. This friend of mine, in his latest book he does a setup where he has some pretty vivid descriptors of the climate death cult, it’s actually pretty funny and spot on observation of human behaviour.

If and when you feel in the mood, post an amazon or apple store link for your books somehow.

Well, look it this way. Disney used to make original science fiction films like The Black Hole, Flight of the Navigator, or Tron. It even made rather silly family ones like The Cat from Outer Space. When it did adapt, it didn’t always adapt big franchises; things like Escape From Witch Mountain or Something Wicked this Way Comes wouldn’t be seen as marketable today.

But now, Disney’s only real success has been the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Their live action movies have been almost entirely forgettable, and their future releases are all comic book films or sequels to sequels. I think there’s something to the lack of creativity argument.

four score and seven years ago weesa fathers bringa forth on dis continent, a new nation, conceiv in liberty, and dedicat toda proposition da all men is creat equal. now weesa is engag inda great civil war, test whether da nation, or any nation so conceiv and so dedicat, ganna longo endure. weesa is met onda great battlefield of da war. weesa has comein to dedicata a portion of da field, as a final rest place for thesa who here gave thesa lives da da nation might live. isa altogether fitt and proper da weesa should doin dis. but, inda larger sense, weesa cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. da brave men, liv and dead, who struggl here, has consecrat it, far above weesa poor power to add or detract. da biiig empire ganna litta bitty nota, nor longo remember what weesa sayin here, but it ganna never forget what thesa did here.isa for us da liv, rather, to be dedicat here toda unfinish jobbin which thesa who figtha here has thus far so nob advanc. isa rather for us to be here dedicat toda great task remain before us—that from these honor dead weesa take increas devotion to da cause for which thesa gave da last full measure of devotion—that weesa here high resolve da these dead no has di in vain—that dis nation,under biiig one,shoulda a new birth of freedom— and da government of da people, by da people, for da people, no perish from da earth.”

Here’s one alternate – the lone “second string” character to survive all three original movies was Wedge Antilles. As I understand it, later on in the timeline (in one or another of the books), he becomes a Sith. A story about how he went from one to the other might be interesting.

I’m not a total Star Wars trivia nut, but the article gets one thing wrong. Jango Fett was the bounty hunter cloned to create the troopers, and part of his payment was a pure unmodified clone, Boba, to be his son.

(The animated Clone Wars series has him in training with the clones, but he’s a bit of a misfit.)

So, the Hollywood version of his story will have him filled with existential angst about being a clone with his evil acts being how he lashes out against the discrimination he faces, and they’ll make the Stallone Judge Dredd mistake of having him spend most of the film with his helmet off.

The deal-breaker will be good writing. Hoping for a perfect storm like the vision, design and unique tone of the original Star Wars series is optimistic. They were so good we even forgave the awful men in stiff pig-suits and the sadly conceived Ewoks. Even Whedon can’t do a “Serenity” at will. As always, great art, especially when there are many people involved, is a mystery. Three elements are great technique, vision and design – a rarity in film.

A Hans Solo film could be interesting. However the real meat is Luke and Leia. Anikin did bring balance to the Force. Yin and Yang. Male and Female. Luke turns towards the Dark Side and Leia opposes him. The two remaining Jedi, split. Female as the tamer of Male aggression.

Classic philosophical themes to run with…you can take that all kinds of places.